Special: The Legacy Of Minecraft

Just to think: without a publisher backing or any sort of advertisement besides “word of mouth”, Minecraft has become one of the biggest indie games of all time. It has been turned into a pop culture icon with its pickaxes and wonderful Creepers (being sarcastic, they’re the worse monsters ever). For those of you who don’t know, Minecraft is a sandbox world creator that can be downloaded on PC, PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, Xbox One, and other devices. It is one of my favorite games to play with friends and family.

The PS4 and Xbox One versions came out not too long ago. I wanted to write about Minecraft because it has been on my mind lately, thinking about what to build or where to dig next. It’s a simple, yet complicated game that anyone can enjoy.

Let’s go through some interesting facts as well as take a look at what some players have come up with…

What do you like to build exactly? You can build nearly anything once you get a handle and then “master” Minecraft. Some people go as far as to recreate to country of Denmark, which is incredible. Others may just make simple houses and towns, but there is nothing wrong with that. I tend to make giant castles out of different materials like stone bricks or smooth sandstone. Here are some of the pictures I’ve found:

Beautiful Denmark before…

Then after the “terrorist attack” by some Americans apparently…

That’s a lot of soda pollution. Come on, Coca Cola.

These are also really cool…

Does this remind you of anything?

Here are some facts that you probably didn’t know:

1. In recent news, on Spetember 15th, 2014, Mojang (company behind Minecraft) was bought out by Microsoft for $2.5 billion. It is still unclear what Microsoft plans to do with Mojang, but we’ll probably find out soon enough.

2. Marcus “Notch” Persson, the developer of Minecraft, had left Mojang for personal reasons a little while ago. He is a nice and funny guy who has been interviewed many times and has become popular over the years. It is sad to see him go.

3. Minecraft is big enough to even have its own gaming convention: Minecon.

4. Minecraft has received many awards including the forth best game to play at work from PC Gamer in July 2010.

5. The Smithsonian American Art Museum had chosen Minecraft as one of eighty games that would be part of “The Art Of Video Games” exhibit that opened on March 16th, 2012. I would love to go there sometime; I’ve remember hearing about this project back in its early stages.

6. One million dollars came from Minecraft merchandise alone by May 2012. I have a Creeper keychain, which is one of my favorites in my keychain collection. 🙂

7. Some video games like Minecraft have been considered to be used in education, and even help “redesign new buildings and projects” as said from a Swedish developer at Minecon in 2011; schools have actually started using Minecraft during the same year. I’m not really surprised by this because you can sometimes learn a lot from video games, especially if they have nice, realistic physics.

8. In London, the British Museum has announced plans to recreate its building as well as all of its exhibits for the public in September this year, so that’ll be neat to see.

9. Minecraft has been referenced in many games like Borderlands 2, and I’m sure more will come in the future.

10. If you like the background music of Minecraft, then you can look up Daniel “C418” Rosenfeld, a German composer who does great ambient and electronic songs to enjoy as you are mining. 😀

That is all I have for you today. I knew most of this information beforehand, but I did some research for some of the facts as well as the random pictures I found off of Google and Wikipedia. If you want to find out more about Minecraft, there is a official Minecraft Wiki and my friend Zachary has started up a blog too, so be sure to check them out. Have a nice day!